Piranha (1995)

Well, it's the end of summer. So, let's celebrate by doing another summer horror movie! I originally planned to review the 1978 Piranha this week – the original movie that people sort of remember. But unfortunately, I didn't do my research, and ended up watching something else entirely – the 1995 Piranha remake, to be exact; a movie I didn't know existed. Because apparently, I am going senile after six years of doing this site and can't be bothered to watch the right movies.

Director: Scott P. Levy

Starring: William Katt, Alexandra Paul

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This movie is good, if by 'good' you really just mean 'ripping off every creature flick in existence and doing a bland job of it without actually offending.' Which is what I always mean when I say good. So I guess it's cool.

The film begins with two kids going out onto the water, and yes, it's totally OK for the girl to get naked and the guy to be completely clothed – that's what feminism has brought us.

They blather on about how it's totally cool to be there, and no, nerdy guy, nothing bad will happen. Which is a surefire guarantee, really. It should be an insurance premium – if a hot chick in a horror movie tells you everything will be fine, it totally will be.

The nakedness apparently has all the answers.

They start swimming for a bit until one thing slightly inconveniences them – a swarm of hungry piranhas that devours them alive. I guess the insurance policy was a bit of a fraud. Oh well. At least we have Obamacare now, so this kind of thing never happens in horror movies anymore.

The main story starts when a writer guy named Paul living out in the woods is confronted by a scientist named Maggie, who is searching for the two kids who got killed in the opening scene – even though we will never remember their names, and even the movie sort of forgets them as we go along. We get a few bland scenes of them introducing one another, which of course ends with Paul joining her for a wacky buddy cop scenario like all bad movies have.

"Let's exchange pointless banter and then grow to love one another at the end!"
"Okay!"

They go and find some laboratory where some scientists were experimenting on piranhas, or some shit like that. They don't get very far, though, before a crazy woman attacks them with an ax. It's random and out of nowhere, but hey, the movie needed someone to spout exposition lazily later on, so they just threw this lady in. I've seen worse excuses for exposition... wait, no. No I haven't. This is the worst.

Put the ax down, Annie Wilkes. You're better off just getting out of this while you can.

They tie her up and bring her back to Paul's place, and the next day while they're searching for the source of the piranha attacks, the lady gives them some exposition about how the piranhas were created by the government so they could put them in the water of enemy countries and kill everyone off. That's so stupid, even most Internet conspiracy theorists would call it insane – but I guess in this movie it's a reality.

I also love how there had to be this whole big explanation of this plot. Isn't it just the same shit all these movies have? If the government wasn't behind this, it would have been aliens or something. Those are the only two options. After that, you just copy and paste all the other tropes and wallah, you have a bland and formulaic creature horror flick.

They do save a kid from the piranhas, but the crazy lady dies, because her purpose in the movie was just to tell the extremely bland backstory. Boy, these movies sure do have a weird, Darwinian view of purposes in life, huh? Once you give the exposition, you have no reason to live and can thus be ripped apart immediately. Heavy stuff for a movie made by people who I'm not sure could count past 12.

"Farewell, sweet princess. You have served your purpose and may now go to the Great Exposition Dump in the Sky, where Odin awaits you."

Also, while I'm on the subject, the piranhas make noises more like raptors from Jurassic Park or something, and it is annoying as shit. It's also always the exact same noise, with no variation. It's kind of like if they were puppets with the laziest sound-box in the world. Really? Couldn't even vary up the scary noises they make? Ah well – it's still better than the noise the mosquito made in Mosquito.

This apparently makes noises like a fucking dinosaur or bird of prey. Oh well. I'll go with it.

They then find out Paul's daughter who he never talks to is at a summer camp where all the piranhas are plotting to kill everyone. The movie doesn't say they're plotting to do that, but I think it's funnier to imagine a bunch of mutant piranhas sitting around with a map plotting out points on where to attack.

Of course, because this is a dumb movie from the '90s, the authority figures don't believe Paul and Maggie when they say piranhas are going to attack. Because Mr. Bigwig Businessman wants money! So that trumps any and all warnings of danger, even from legit scientists who have no reason to lie about it. This is basically how the whole conversation goes:

PAUL AND MAGGIE: We need to evacuate that park, because piranhas are going to kill everyone!

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: No, we need money! You're just a bunch of liberal feminist hippies!

(Yes, that's an actual line in the fucking movie.)

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Wouldn't it make sense to at least check and make sure a bunch of child deaths aren't going to be on your conscience?

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: *plugs ears with fingers* LALALALALALA!

SHERIFF: I'm gonna arrest you now on no legitimate charges because I am in the businessman's pocket! That's how reality works!

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Damn!

So, yeah, really – they get thrown in jail for no reason and can't even make a phone call because “they're not arrested, they're just being held.” Which is so illegal that I'm positive the entire sheriff's department would be immediately overhauled in real life and Paul and Maggie would be able to sue them for millions. But this movie is more of a cartoon than anything, so we need a scene where they knock out a guard to escape and steal his pants because the key to the jail is chained to them, and we get to see this:

Amazing. I can die in peace now after seeing this.

Then we get the climax, full of kids dying and their parents dying while trying to save them. That's great because their lives are ruined forever now.

Aw. What a heartwarming summer image.

Paul and Maggie go out to the ocean and try to lure the piranha into this old barge thing, or something like that – Paul is underwater for much longer than any of the other characters who died, but he doesn't get attacked at all. Hmmm. Maybe that's incredibly poor writing based on lazy convenience and anyone who does it should be ashamed.

Nah – the fish were probably just hungover that day of shooting.

And plus, it's cool – later, the piranhas DO attack him mercilessly, which is what I wanted to see from the first time I heard that weenie talk. But he demonstrates that being the main character means piranhas devouring you just means you have blood paint on you afterwards and are mostly fine.

"No! That guy I knew for one day is DEAD! I loved him!!!"

"Arrrgggrrrrrhhhh! Even I don't know how I survived this!"

So they get rid of all the piranhas and then the businessman guy shoots himself. Yes, really – that's the end of his story. It's totally dark, and is the best suicide I have ever seen.

Best ending ever!

Then the movie ends with kids on a beach presumably going to get eaten by more piranhas, with a voiceover from the mayor or somebody telling them it's totally safe!

Which is totally original and not at all a lame Jaws rip off. Not at all.

This was pretty bad, but not offensive or anything – it was pretty harmless. The worst thing about it had to be that noise the piranhas made. Just for that, I give it zero stars. If it didn't have that noise in it, it could have been a solid three-star movie. But the noise the piranha made killed it, just killed it dead.

And what? There were plenty of boob shots and fanservice scenes I could have very easily put into the review and made it better? Damn. Just damn. Between getting the movie wrong AND not putting in those pandering fanservice shots, I'm really not at the top of my game. I could have edited this further and fixed everything in addition to watching the correct movie instead, but I'm just leaving all of this rambling at the end of this mediocre review. Oh well. I'll try again next week.

Images copyright of their original owner. I own none of them.

Killer Mermaid (2014)

I recently saw the 1979 Tarkovsky film Stalker, which was about a man who led people into a strange other dimension called The Zone to search for their innermost desires. And it rang true with me, because I also am about to embark on a similar journey.

For you see, I am also searching for something – a purpose in my life. I've heard all the legends and stories; all the hushed whispers of those who have tried and failed at the task I am going to undertake today. This is the path I need to take, for at the end of it, there supposedly lies a grand, ultimate truth that will set my soul at ease and answer all my questions. It is in a cruel twist of fate that I realize what road I must travel down – this movie contains the answers I seek.

Director: Milan Todorovic

Starring: Kristina Klebe, Natalie Burn

IMDb

Yes, Killer Mermaid. It's a Serbian horror film that is actually, apparently, the first 'creature flick' made in the country, which is pretty cool. What isn't cool is the fact that everything about it is stale and tired already. It is a strange, boring journey with many perilous obstacles that could be the death of me. This is the voyage of legends, which no man has survived awake or with all his brain cells. If I fall asleep, I lose the game and have to start over. Wish me luck!

It starts off rather innocuously, as it is in all aspects a regular film – it has characters speaking English and not breaking off into crying screaming gibberish, and they are talking to each other and not to hallucinations only they can see. Also, the dialogue seems to all go in one direction and seems like it's in the same language. So it's good – we know we're in our own reality, which is the standard I have come to start out all these reviews with, because that way at least nothing is as bad as Bad Kids Go to Hell.

Unfortunately, what seemed like a comfortingly bland beginning gives way to my first obstacle, as I was lulled into a false sense of security – The Bland and Stupid Opening Kill. The opening kill scene is these two, who come to the beach to take off their shirts, stand on the sand and make out – I'm sure that's a great pastime in Serbia where this was filmed. Leave your pants on and don't get in the water – just take off your shirts. That's where the real sexiness is.

Ohhh yeah, cue the funky music.

Then the guy says he hears a strange sound, and the girl assures him it's just a club nearby. They don't seem to be AROUND any clubs, and I'm really not sure what clubs play weird atonal ocean music. I wouldn't want to go there though.

I wade through the ocean of cliche with no stars to guide my way. I can feel the reality setting in - I'm on my own, and there is no one to help me. The opening kill characters get killed off by a guy who clearly has watched too I Know What You Did Last Summer too many goddamn times. Like, seriously, a hook used to kill them? That's so last summer.

You've done something new this week, Rebecca - did you cut your hair?

The sludgelike miasma of the movie rolls over me in waves. I can already feel my eyelids growing heavier. But this is only the beginning of the bizarre and terrible challenges of the movie. The next challenge to overcome is the main plot, involving two American chicks who look like supermodels going on vacation to Serbia. Because, ya know, why not? We need some implausible reason to set this in Serbia! No, we can't just have a movie set there! We have to throw American tourists in like every other movie on the planet!

Already, I feel my sanity starting to go. Sarcasm won't save me this time. This is the second horrible trap the movie springs on me – that of the Awful Dialogue and the Cliche Characters. These two just blather on and on about nonsense like how hot the one girl's boss is.

"Is your editor hot?"
"No, he's in his 40s and overweight."
"...so, he's hot?"

Also, yeah, they're here to see an old boyfriend of the one chick's from college, who now has a fiancee. Because that sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? It's practically tailored for the next episode of Dr. Phil. Cause, you know, most adults let their future spouses invite random hot supermodel-looking foreigners to come hang out for a weekend. If it sounds like a set-up for a porno, it's good enough for your horror movie.

I already feel my feet sinking, as if I've stepped in quicksand. I grasp for something to hold onto, but there is nothing. This is the next stage of traps the movie has set up – The Filler Scenes. This is a sequence of utterly dull and drab scenes of these morons actually trying to relate to the audience. This movie is so bad at that that I relate more to this than to these characters:

Yes – the movie is reverting me to a primal form. It's winding back the clock on humanity, and now suddenly, I can relate to apes. This is torture. It's the movie's test getting real. This has become an ordeal on the level of the perils Odysseus faces in The Odyssey.

Seriously – we really need all these scenes of these assholes cheating on one another, lying about it AND sitting around at a dinner table blathering about a deserted island with an old prison they want to visit? That last one is fine, but the FIRST TWO? Just unacceptable. The dialogue is just the pits, and sitting through these airheads talking about whether or not Mr. Serbian Ex Boyfriend has a guy friend she can hook up with is torture of a magnitude I have not known in at least a few weeks since I saw Ouija.

I really wanted him to just straight up say 'no, you're awful.' Ya know – be honest. It would make it better for me.

Fuck. There's even a scene where a grizzled old man in a fisherman's hat warns them not to go to the island? I'd like to say it's better to play it straight than to do the whole dumb irony thing, but I really think in Serbia, they just got the first Friday the 13th like, a few years ago, so this seems fresh and new to them.

"I only drink when I'm remembering contrived tragic backstories. And I'm always doing that." 

Also, one of the characters mentions that the guy looks like he's from I Know What You Did Last Summer. What? How dare you steal my joke? That's the first time a movie has done that. Truly, this is a devious plot – what lengths will they go to to undermine everything that I do?

Sigh. I just don't know if this is worth it. What kind of enlightenment could possibly be worth sitting through more of this movie's grueling tests of my will? Is it worth it to finish this? Who am I, really? What am I going to gain for finishing this movie? I feel the weight of all of this settling in – all the dumb characters, all the insipid lines and all the rehashed plotlines – and I sit down. I pause the movie. I reflect for a moment on all that I have seen and all that still lies ahead.

And I decide, in this moment of truth, that not finishing this piece of shit movie would be worse than finishing it, because if I don't finish it, then I just watched half of it for nothing.

And so I turn the movie back on.

The film's final test is by far the worst one – the Stunted, Dull Horror Movie Chase. The settings could be worse I suppose. But everything else is toxic poison. It even throws in some of the previous awful cliches when we get scenes of one girl whose brother drowned struggling with how to deal with her fear of water. And yet she agreed to come on vacation to a place with a lot of water and hang out near it the entire time. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds brain-fuckingly retarded.

Oh, a pointless flirting scene for a romance that goes nowhere. Excuse me while I drift further into the realm of sleep...

Then we just get a bunch of extremely rote scenes of them wandering around the prison. It's every scene you've seen in every other dumb movie like this. I want to be nicer since this is a foreign film and made on a fairly low budget I imagine. But there's really no excuse for poor dialogue and poor writing. The movie very nearly did me in with this, as it lasts for the entire rest of the film – a long, slow, agonizing trudge through nothingness and nonsense.

Like, really, how serious does the tone need to be in a movie about a bunch of dumb kids finding an island with a guy feeding random kill victims to a mermaid? This whole thing is about as silly and fun as a funeral procession for a guy everyone liked. The one thing that could have saved this was a goofy, fast paced thrill ride, but all of that was squeezed out of this movie like a tube of toothpaste.

That's really only a D minus mermaid. You can do better.

And when they randomly run into Exposition Man from earlier, Mr. I Know What You Did Last Summer, who tells them a story in a very monotone voice about how he was the only survivor of a shipwreck on this island years ago after the mermaid killed his crewmen. Wow. How sad. Let me play the world's smallest violin.

The final battle scene goes on way too long and is yet another solution to your insomnia. Lots of ominous sounding dialogue delivered in boring hushed monotones and lots of scrambling around on a boat. Yaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnnn. They finally kill the dumb mermaid after it attacks them on land, which was a dumb plan from the monster's part. Really, you'd think she'd have been smart enough to not go to the one place where the humans have the advantage.

RIP...on second thought, no, I changed my mind. I don't care.

Phew. What a shit-show. Bad characters, a cliche plot and nothing remotely exciting about it, due in no small part to the ludicrous 'dark' tone the whole thing has. It's cool that this is the first Serbian 'creature flick,' and I hope they make more, but that doesn't excuse the lame things about the movie, as much as I want it to.

But in the end, I made it through the movie. I completed my vision quest journey. I am a weary traveler, and I think I deserve to know what it is that will complete my yearning soul.

So. What is it? What is the light at the end of the long, dark, murky tunnel of this movie?

Yeah, y'know what? Not worth it!

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